Smarter Than Us: Superintelligence and the Future of Humanity
Geoffrey Hinton · Patchen Barss
Jan 2027 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Geoffrey Hinton
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About this audiobook
The Nobel Prize–winning “godfather of AI” explains why the machines he helped create may soon surpass us—and what humanity can still do to shape the future.
Geoffrey Hinton is one of the architects of modern artificial intelligence. For more than half a century, he has sought to understand how the human brain learns—and to build machines that could do the same. His pioneering work on neural networks laid the foundation for systems like ChatGPT and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics.
For decades, Hinton believed that machines would eventually surpass human intelligence. What he did not expect was how soon it might happen—or that digital intelligences might prove fundamentally better than humans at learning and sharing knowledge. That realization transformed him from one of AI's foremost pioneers into its most authoritative warning voice.
In Smarter Than Us, Hinton explains how AI works and why it is advancing so rapidly, giving readers the tools to understand its dangers for themselves. Those dangers are already visible: labor disruption, the erosion of shared truth, cyberwarfare, autonomous weapons. But Hinton argues that a deeper risk lies ahead. As we build systems capable of pursuing their own goals, we may be relinquishing control in ways that cannot easily be reversed. Superhuman systems do not need to hate us to become dangerous; they may simply pursue objectives for which humanity is irrelevant—or an obstacle.
Yet this is not a book of despair. Hinton does not believe AI's advance can—or should—be stopped. Its potential benefits are too great, and the forces driving it too powerful. Instead, he asks how humanity might coexist with intelligences more powerful than ourselves—and whether our survival may depend less on controlling them than on ensuring they care about us. Smarter Than Us is a warning from the scientist who helped make this future possible—and a call to shape it while the future is still ours.
Geoffrey Hinton is one of the architects of modern artificial intelligence. For more than half a century, he has sought to understand how the human brain learns—and to build machines that could do the same. His pioneering work on neural networks laid the foundation for systems like ChatGPT and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics.
For decades, Hinton believed that machines would eventually surpass human intelligence. What he did not expect was how soon it might happen—or that digital intelligences might prove fundamentally better than humans at learning and sharing knowledge. That realization transformed him from one of AI's foremost pioneers into its most authoritative warning voice.
In Smarter Than Us, Hinton explains how AI works and why it is advancing so rapidly, giving readers the tools to understand its dangers for themselves. Those dangers are already visible: labor disruption, the erosion of shared truth, cyberwarfare, autonomous weapons. But Hinton argues that a deeper risk lies ahead. As we build systems capable of pursuing their own goals, we may be relinquishing control in ways that cannot easily be reversed. Superhuman systems do not need to hate us to become dangerous; they may simply pursue objectives for which humanity is irrelevant—or an obstacle.
Yet this is not a book of despair. Hinton does not believe AI's advance can—or should—be stopped. Its potential benefits are too great, and the forces driving it too powerful. Instead, he asks how humanity might coexist with intelligences more powerful than ourselves—and whether our survival may depend less on controlling them than on ensuring they care about us. Smarter Than Us is a warning from the scientist who helped make this future possible—and a call to shape it while the future is still ours.
The Nobel Prize–winning “godfather of AI” explains why the machines he helped create may soon surpass us—and what humanity can still do to shape the future.
Geoffrey Hinton is one of the architects of modern artificial intelligence. For more than half a century, he has sought to understand how t...
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About the author
Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, is internationally renowned for his pioneering work in deep learning. He is a professor emeritus of the University of Toronto, a fellow of the UK’s Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist, speaker, and author, most recently of the acclaimed biography, The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius.
Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist, speaker, and author, most recently of the acclaimed biography, The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius.
Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, is internationally renowned for his pioneering work in deep learning. He is a professor emeritus of the University of Toronto, a fellow of the UK’s Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and an intern...
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